richms: so what was behind that site out east auckland that the guy had no grounds to appeal going on a lamppost outside his house?

Do you read the articles? It took them more than 6 months to get the concent. It is up to the individual councils to grant access. They had meeting after meeting about the tower. For example; in Wellington they have had meeting after meeting about a silly tower in the Hutt, it has taken over 12 months and I have given up wondering if it was ever built.

If you are referring to the proposed Maungauraki cellsite. I rang the Hutt City Council yesterday and they say the resource consent has been granted so just waiting on 2D to get it erected. I note a strong signal was being received up there transmitted from the Gracefield cellsite.

From what I can tell: MikeyPI - Has NO concept of reality. Sure, they can build their own, they are trying, but due to NZ's landscape/lack of population its hard to build a case to borrow 1B for a network. And they do have a great strategy, they are not trying to be loss leaders, actually I highly doubt they would loose any money from ANY customer. Whereas the $10 text plans are loss leaders. Most of the children who only spend $10 a month aren't worth it.

2D is new, anyway by October texting will be 1-3c and calling will be cheaper too.

I have a concept of reality, I own my own business. I just dont demand regulation if I cant foot it with the big boys. So if I cant borrow the money to fund my business as it is a bad investment, I can lobby the government to make it easier on me? Sounds like Communism, I thought free market rules?

Also in your barely comprehensible post you contradict yourself.

Stuve: they are not trying to be loss leaders, actually I highly doubt they would loose any money from ANY customer.

Stuve: Most of the children who only spend $10 a month aren't worth it.

The majority of 2D customers will be kids / teens with the lowest ARPU in the industry, making customer numbers needed to sell as a going concern.

Telecom's $10 text is about to end in 2 months, I am not sure about Boost. But on 31st march 2gedrees has a HUGE opportunity. Let's hope the ComCom get the regulation sorted out sooner than October.

There's nothing stopping 2degrees launching a $10 plan now.

Yes there is (1) Mobile termination rates. and roaming rates when 2D customers are roaming on Vfones network.

MTRs aren't a factor. Text messages are a zero sum game - provider A pays provider B for the message, provider B pays provider A for the reply. Net transfer: $0.

I think I recall someone (maybe Paul?) saying in a blog or forum post that VF was caught off guard when Telecom introduced $10 TXT the first time, as it never occurred to them to actually exploit that mechanic - they thought Telecom would lose a fortune.

Most likely, 2degrees can even potentially make a profit as they have favourable rates for transferring messages and calls to Vodafone so for each 2D->VF->2D loop, 2degrees actually would make money.

There is absolutely nothing in the MTR regime that stops a provider offering $10 TXT today. You may have noticed Telecom doing this for the past few years.

That's a bit like saying advertisers are paying too much to put ads in the newspaper therefore the subscription price has to go up. The two are not linked.

As for roaming rates, well that's just foolishness. If 2D couldn't roam onto VF's network they'd have a much smaller footprint in the country so they'd make LESS money. Trying to suggest that VF charges 2D too much for roaming is bizarre. There are other operators in town - they could roam to Telecom (for example). The market is a competitive one and they've got a deal they're happy to launch with.

Or are you just looking for yet more regulatory intervention for the sake of it?

PaulBrislen: There is absolutely nothing in the MTR regime that stops a provider offering $10 TXT today. You may have noticed Telecom doing this for the past few years.

That's a bit like saying advertisers are paying too much to put ads in the newspaper therefore the subscription price has to go up. The two are not linked.

As for roaming rates, well that's just foolishness. If 2D couldn't roam onto VF's network they'd have a much smaller footprint in the country so they'd make LESS money. Trying to suggest that VF charges 2D too much for roaming is bizarre. There are other operators in town - they could roam to Telecom (for example). The market is a competitive one and they've got a deal they're happy to launch with.

Or are you just looking for yet more regulatory intervention for the sake of it?

Cheers

Paul

Paul, why then don't Vfone offer it. It seems most of the Vfone text plans are on net. If their was money to be made vfone would have introduced a $10TXT years ago.

PaulBrislen: There is absolutely nothing in the MTR regime that stops a provider offering $10 TXT today. You may have noticed Telecom doing this for the past few years.

That's a bit like saying advertisers are paying too much to put ads in the newspaper therefore the subscription price has to go up. The two are not linked.

As for roaming rates, well that's just foolishness. If 2D couldn't roam onto VF's network they'd have a much smaller footprint in the country so they'd make LESS money. Trying to suggest that VF charges 2D too much for roaming is bizarre. There are other operators in town - they could roam to Telecom (for example). The market is a competitive one and they've got a deal they're happy to launch with.

Or are you just looking for yet more regulatory intervention for the sake of it?

Cheers

Paul

ok so why isn't vodafone offering $10 text then? Telecom do and you don't. I think lots of young kids would switch to vodafone if you did.

PaulBrislen: There is absolutely nothing in the MTR regime that stops a provider offering $10 TXT today. You may have noticed Telecom doing this for the past few years.

That's a bit like saying advertisers are paying too much to put ads in the newspaper therefore the subscription price has to go up. The two are not linked.

As for roaming rates, well that's just foolishness. If 2D couldn't roam onto VF's network they'd have a much smaller footprint in the country so they'd make LESS money. Trying to suggest that VF charges 2D too much for roaming is bizarre. There are other operators in town - they could roam to Telecom (for example). The market is a competitive one and they've got a deal they're happy to launch with.

Or are you just looking for yet more regulatory intervention for the sake of it?

Cheers

Paul

Paul, why then don't Vfone offer it. It seems most of the Vfone text plans are on net. If their was money to be made vfone would have introduced a $10TXT years ago.

Because they're smart and can make more money by not offering such a plan?

Why drive down APRU? Vodafone have higher APRU on Prepay then Telecom and based upon stats that were tossed around at the time of the XT launch they had well over 65% of mobile revenue despite there being a fairly even 50/50 split in Telecom. A lack of $10 TXT certainly hasn't hurt VT in any way.

yuxek: ok so why isn't vodafone offering $10 text then? Telecom do and you don't. I think lots of young kids would switch to vodafone if you did.

They might - but the question is would they want those customers. A customer who only spends $10 per month isn't very valuable and would ranks exceptionally lowly on any customer loyalty rankings. If somebody offered them the same service for $9 they'd jump ship. These are the sort of customers no business wants.

McDonalds would probably sell lots more Big Macs if they sold them for the same price as a hamburger. You would then be driving down your average customer spend which is something no business wants.

Either there's a "huge opportunity" as the grandparent post suggests, or there's no opportunity and such plans are unable to make money as you suggest...

Telecom clearly thinks it can make money at it - it offers $10TXT to its CDMA customers and the equivalent $12 TXT to XT customers.

Vodafone has chosen not to offer such a plan and as I said it's got nothing to do with MTR and all to do with which market we chose to go after.

Cheers

Paul

why not go after both markets? kids and business people. there are now 3 mobile networks so if 2degress one day offers $10 text to any network then I will be giving up my vodafone cellphone and just have a 2degrees and xt cellphone. if you offered $10 text tomorrow there would probably be a big surge in people buying new vodafone phones and topping up. may be short lived surge but it's better than nothing right?

No because when they no longer want to offer that $10 item, there is a whole lot of whinging and bitching from these virtually worthless users, even when the end of it has been as widely known as the $10 text on cdma